About Us

When a group of like-minded people gather to chirp & chat about an idea for a festival! Circa 1997

2026 Keynote Speaker at our
Gala Celebration – Adam Shoalts Ph.D.

Festival History

Wings over the Rockies Nature Festival

Our mission, since 1997 hasn’t changed and it is at the heart of everything we do. Wings believes that the internationally recognized Columbia River wetlands and adjacent areas are special places and Nature must comes first. Our guiding principles for our festival:

Conservation

Education

Stewardship

Sustainable Economic Development

Nurturing a Living Legacy with Nature.

Nurturing a Living Legacy with Nature

The Wings over the Rockies Nature Festival, May 4 – 10, 2026, is based out of Invermere, BC. For 29 years, we have hosted a premier 7 day nature festival to celebrate the Upper Columbia Valley.

Our mission is at the heart of everything we do: supporting and promoting conservation, education, stewardship, and sustainable economic development in our beautiful valley.

This year’s festival features over 90+ incredible events, including field excursions, engaging luncheon and evening presentations, our annual photo contest and an incredible online auction.

Highlights also include a special film screening of “The Art of Adventure”, the much-anticipated music event with multi-award-nominated Canadian legends The Wardens, and our traditional Gala Celebration—a sit-down dinner and presentation featuring keynote speaker Adam Shoalts Ph.D. – renowned adventurer and named one of the “greatest living explorers” by Canadian Geographic, and declared “Canada’s Indiana Jones” by the Toronto Star, Adam Shoalts is one of Canada’s bestselling authors with 6 books to his name.

What we do together matters

Last year, the non-profit Wings over the Rockies Nature Festival Society, through the Columbia Valley Foundation, created the Ross MacDonald Memorial Legacy Fund.

This legacy fund provides funding for projects in the Columbia Valley that support community environmental education and/or land-based conservation such as habitat restoration, maintaining or improving ecological conditions, or species at risk protection.

Each year, the success of our festival, in part, contributes to this important legacy fund.